Article in the New York Times by Gary Rivlin. Stories about entrepreneurs who got rich extremely fast, but still keep on building new companies.

Interesting part:

?It?s easier to start the next company than it was in the past,? said Marc Andreessen, who was a co-founder of Netscape Communications in 1994, when he was 22. It is also potentially more lucrative than it was even a dozen years ago, said Mr. Andreessen, who despite a net worth estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars is now at work on his third start-up, a social networking company called Ning.

?For the first time in history, you have a global market of 1 billion-plus people, all connected over an interactive network,? Mr. Andreessen said. ?The opportunities are bigger than ever before.?

Yup. But also see the quote on working 15-18 hours a day. Got to have these hours first, though.

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Article by Michal Szota (devoted to complaints about Apple’s Leopard) mentioned WriteRoom, word processor for Macs.

The main feature of this program is its ability to open full screen and hide all the elements except for the text itself.

I love the idea. I wanted something like this for some time already.

I think idea of removing distractions will be a big topic for the future.

Even now I would appreciate to have a magic key which would make all the clutter disappear and leave visible only the thing I am working on. Preferably, it would block alt-tab combination and require a password for coming out of the isolation.

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At least based on one small case study of a Polish boy, who after two years at British school, choose to return to Lodz. Average in Poland, he was considered a genius among UK peers and got tired of being “dumbed down”. Reported in Daily Mail.

I would have never expected that Polish education system would serve as a benchmark for any other country. But take one of the commenters in Daily Mail:

I’ve been teaching English in Poland for nearly 11 years now and can attest to the high standard of education here. My students know more about British history than I do and they’ve also read more of the British classics than I have. The system isn’t perfect - if cheating was an Olympic sport they’d take gold, silver and bronze - but it’s streaks ahead of the British system.

After school here kids don’t go home and veg out in front of the TV, they get extra lessons in English, French, or German, or in the run up to their “Matura” (high school leaving certificate) they can be found at the weekend getting private lessons in the sciences just so they can be sure of doing well and going on to the university of their choice.

Additionally, there are bilingual schools where pupils study the whole curriculum in French or English, or in some schools that aren’t completely bilingual, they offer certain classes, i.e. physics, in English. Can you imagine such a thing in the UK?

What’s best with it is that it’s totally true. Yet in Poland we’ve been complaining about education for ages.

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22:55. Initial results of the election are out.

Liberal Citizen Platform totally won. No word yet on split of seats.

Seems the great political strategist Mr. Kaczynski overengineered the strategy a bit and lost the elections.

Update: Nevetheless much better speech by J. Kaczynski. Except for conspirational beginning and bitter ending.

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Found this post accidentally: Blog Tip: Do NOT Put Adsense on Your Blog.

Its point is that Adsense brings so little revenue on a blog, that it is not worth bother to use it.

Quotes numbers which give 0.02% CTR (mine is 0.13%), and 0.06$ eCPM (mine is 0.$19). Hey I’m not so bad - relatively:)

Still it’s clear that ad performance on non-targeted blogs is very low.

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While two years ago there was a feeling of indifference to the elections, today there is a feeling of a quiet mobilization.

There were emails and then smses from friends, urging to go and vote.

And at the election office, when I at last found it today, there was a queue of people (voting today reminds me that I am officially citizen of Warsaw for two weeks already…)

It would be interesting how these feelings translate into the turnout number. At the moment it is known that at 10:30, 8.36% showed up, compared to 6.76% two years ago. Then, it’s almost 24% more. Since two years ago final turnout was 41%, if I remember correctly, I would bet today it should be something like 51%. Nevertheless I would hope for 55% or more.

Update: according to survey of 16:30, turnout is 28% higher than last time. Consequently final target would be 53%. Still not bad.

Update: 21:15. Gosh what a mess with the elections! But a smashing hit nevertheless! And I was correct about turnout in the morning, it is above 55%, a record result. Voting cards ran out. Some people abroad were not registered. Elections fail to close since 8pm and commission was delaying the closing every 20 minutes, but last time they said they cannot say when they will finally close. Till then, no surveys.

Update: 21:30. Delay till at least 23:00 because of screw-ups in Warsaw, where they ran out of cards and had to prolong voting. Guy from the election commission seemed already at the edge when he was trying to excuse this mess.

Update: 22:55. Results are out.

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Note: this is about Polish online retailers.

I traditionally shop online at Merlin, but in this case, PJ Harvey’s “To bring you my love”, Merlin estimated delivery time for 20-40 days, so I decided to give Empik a try.

Empik.com said dispatch will take place in 3-5 days. I placed an order.

After 10 days, all I got was an email from Empik that they couldn’t complete the order for the lack of stock. But on the website they still advertise 3-5 days.

Ok, back to Merlin (I can wait after all). I placed an order.

After 6 days I got an email that delivery is ready for pickup.

Conclusion: hard to draw conclusion based on one case, but I expect no shopping in Empik for foreseeable future, or before they control their stock better.

Update: ok maybe it’s not one case after all, see for example here and here.

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Short of $85b to catch Microsoft at $284b.

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A trailer for new book of Naomi Klein is the best conspiracy piece I’ve seen in a long time. Gets even closer to science fiction style of conspiracy, see Japanese Ghost in the Shell cartoons.

Maybe it’s because conspiracy is promoted to the same target audience and through the same means as entertainment.

Change can be generated in conditions of shock. Isn’t it suggestive? Conspiracy aside, I had enough of change management topic lately to get interested in this point of view.

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For years, record labels have been busy fighting file sharing on the Internet. This activity gave them a good excuse not to bother with changing their obsolete business model. Today, however, Radiohead’s move to release their new album on “pay as much you like” basis may indicate that it will be top bands, not pirates, who will bury the labels.

Label business model is the following: revenues from top bands allows them to invest in promotion of the new ones, in hope that some of them will eventually reach the top, too.

Now, though, top band can itself distribute its music on the Internet at marginal cost. Why share profit with label, then?

Problem with bands is that, in contrast to the customers, they actually own the music, so there is no option to sue them.

Enough top bands head to the doors, record industry model collapses.

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